The majority of your grade is in class quizzes that start of small and increase the percentage of your grade (the first is 5%, then 15%, etc) and then there is a paper that's worth 40% which you are basically supposed to be working on all semester. The grades are up to the TA so it kinda depends who you have but definitely make sure to go to all of the discussions and all of the lectures. This will help you a lot, you might think that you don't need to go after a while but that's not true. The discussions cover different content than the lectures so those are important to go to because you're tested on that material, but it also made the class feel disjointed, because we were doing two separate things at once. Then there was another book outside of class which was majority separate content from both lecture and discussion, which we were supposed to read kind of at our own pace and which was also on the tests. There was no reading schedule for either the primary sources or the anthology, which definitely made it pretty hard. He would generally mention what to read in class for the primary texts but it would've been easier if there was just a schedule.

Secada himself is obviously very smart and passionate about philosophy. He is slightly daunting, especially at first, but there's a lot to learn from him.

First I'll start by saying that I do not think that Secada is as bad as the person below is making it to be. History of Modern Philosophy is a course that should be taken only by those naturally inclined to philosophy, that is, either philosophy majors and minors.

The course is structured with weekly or bi-weekly discussions of the most importantant philosophers of this period, roughly Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant and Hegel. Secada starts his lectures answering questions about the readings. He then complements the readings mentioning central ideas of the texts and diving deeper into the history of each philosopher. Attending the discussions might be helpful in understanding better the material. The grading is divided into take home and in-class quizzes (60%) and a 10-page class essay (40%).

RECOMMENDABILITY: (7.5/10)
DIFFICULTY: (8/10)

Easily the worst professor in the philosophy department. Rambles on about stuff that you do not need to know for the course (learned more about Suarez than about any other philosopher on the syllabus). If you ask him a question, expect him to ignore it and then ramble on about what he was already saying in the first place for 20 minutes and then act as if he answered your question. I love philosophy, but it's sad that such a great school hired this guy to teach the history class. Do anything you can to try and take the history requirements with Lolordo, she is much better. Again 0/5 for Secada